


there are powers at play more forceful than we

by TheEternal (XxmaniacxX)



Series: anthrocene [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (Referenced) - Freeform, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Smoking, implied PTSD, implied depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26332096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XxmaniacxX/pseuds/TheEternal
Summary: Bucky's insomnia and insufferable summer weather force him to think.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: anthrocene [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1913434
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	there are powers at play more forceful than we

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to "a prayer to the air, the air that we breathe"

Sunlight filtered shyly through the blinds. Eyes open, aimless, darting from the ceiling fan to the taupe wall, and back. Summer nights had always been hard, even more so now. Good thing he didn't need sleep.

_ "I need you" _

Three words he'd heard so little, and seldom said. With those eyes, it had been unspoken. Or had it all been a misunderstanding? He thought he knew.

He'd thought wrong. As always, just another pawn. Another chipped plate you forget when packing up. Disposable. All his life he'd been made to feel disposable. There are ten other soldiers waiting to take your place. Ten newer models to bet on. Lost and found and thrashed and sold and bought and sold and bought. Even his body felt second hand worn. The heat didn't help.

If he'd been able to smoke, he would've gone through a pack already. But the apartment, as shitty as it was, had been an arrangement with Falcon. He had to give it back at some point, and nicotine stains never scrub off.

Most stains don't disappear, not even after years of scrubbing yourself clean, scrubbing yourself raw. Skin can be shed but you know, at the end of the day you know the stain was there. The memory is strong. Flesh remembers. The flesh never forgives.

Slow spin. The fan stumbled in slow repetition. It matched the dull ache inside himself. Insomnia had replaced Steve's side of the bed. Even if they hadn't shared one in decades, he only slept with his back against the wall. 

_ "Buck, you're boxing me in!" _

_ "Come on, punk, it's all we've got" _

_ "Just change sides with me, jerk" _

Every blink threatened to let the dam break. Bite-sized aches, scattered throughout his scrambled thoughts. Them at his mom's funeral. Them renting out a room. Them escaping from Zola. Them sharing a tent with the Howling Commandos. Them, them, them. 

Had it mattered to him? Any of it? Doubt had settled some time ago, but those blue eyed always told him he mattered. Was he naïve to believe them? They were not here anymore, they'd taken their one way ticket ride. 

Out of time. 

He'd ran out of time. Creaking and swaying softly. Tear streaks. Muted sobs. Matted hair sticking to his forehead. Thoughts bouncing from a to b to z, crashing and flying and doing emergency landings. He remembered what being stabbed felt like, being shot, waterboarded. When Tony blew off his arm. When they put his head through a blender. He'd survived all of that. And for what? To pilot a hollowed out shell a little longer? No one knew him, no one dared to try. Even Steve was gone. Nothing, but the shitty studio apartment he'd been living in for almost a month now. Nothing.

The room had turned an otherwise inviting orange, but the hours passed with too many implications. He hadn't spoken to anyone in a week. Bucky hadn't even stocked his fridge, or left at all, for that matter. Time passed him by. Sweating, stuck to his bedsheets, staring at the walls, by himself. Just him. Alone.

It's not that he didn't know the feeling; loneliness was too familiar a concept. It was that he had been promised it's end. The hand stretched out in front of him vanished without a warning. Never thought he'd find himself mourning a lost future. A broken promise. Missed opportunities. Never thought he'd be living without Steve, without the chance to speak to him, to be near him, after what they'd been through. A cruel joke. 

Maybe it was time to stop. 

Wipe the tears with the hem of his muscle tee. Wipe the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. Metal was not any cooler. Life trickled. Continued to trickle out. Bucky was waiting for the flood. That's what he needed. Once the flood came, he'd be able to be free. 

Or as free as any man with his past can be. Doubt. Was there ever going to be a world where he was free? Is there any universe where he was? Did it matter? The burden was still there. Having his head in the clouds would get him nowhere. Disassociating would get him nowhere. Even if being present meant hollowness, exhaustion, pain. It all comes back to pain, doesn't it? 

Ticking clock. Creaking fan. Breathing. Faint cars. A neighbour's quarrell. The blinds were half open as always. The keys still on the locked door.

_ " 'm so fucking tired of pain" _

Strangened. The first word he'd spoken in days. Rough. Coarse. Like sand against his throat. But it needed to be said, not for an audience, but for himself. Maybe then he'd believe it. Maybe then he'd be able to let go. To choose. Now he could choose. Now. In this exact moment in time. 

_ "I miss you" _

Rolled off the heavy tongue. A loud whisper. No embarrassment, no shame. Time to embrace the flood.

_ "I needed you" _

Getting bolder, getting louder. Weights off his chest. Breathe in, breathe out. The oppressive summer turning into a bearable warmth. Or maybe it was just the afternoon air bustling through. Maybe his tears were colder against the reddened cheeks.

Bucky closed his eyes and rolled to the other side of the bed. Burying his face in the cool part of the pillow, the strength came to him.

_ "I loved you" _

That was all that needed to be said. Sprawled on the entirety of the bed, face down on Steve's side, summer shifted onto a dream.

Sleep would fix this, for now.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it.
> 
> Feedback is encouraged!!


End file.
